6 Key Moments From the Past 90 Years of Product Placement

Hershey Bars of 1927's Wings to Black Mirror's cereal quest

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Over the years, product placement has been become a character signifier, cultural touchstone and even meta commentary. These are some of the notable examples.

1927

Wings, the first film to win an Academy Award for “Best Production” (later called Best Picture), featured several prominent close-ups of Hershey’s chocolate bars.

1964

Starting with Goldfinger, James Bond was virtually synonymous with dry martinis and his Aston Martin DB5. The producers later incorporated cars from Audi, Bentley, Jaguar and many other automakers into the series.

1982

Steven Spielberg’s E.T.

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This story first appeared in the April 15, 2019, issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.